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30 Gig limit

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by mj-fcal2 Jan 26, 2003 last reply Apr 26, 2003

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Is it possible to partition a 60 gig drive into two 30 gig partitions on a new machine. Then install the drive into an older machine which has a bios limit of 30 gig and have it recognize the two partitions. Currently the only way I've found is to use a jumper on the drive that limits it to 30 gig wasting the other 30. I can't find a new bios.

7 replies

by csmith Jan 26, 2003

A common solution is to install an ATA-100 IDE card.
Maxtor was giving them away, free, with 60 Gig Hard Drives.
On some motherboards there is also a way to overcome this limit, by manually loading invalid sizes into the BIOS. I do not recommend it. Too dangerous.
The ATA-100 IDE card is safer, plus, it is a lot faster than the onboard IDE of an older motherboard.
You will really notice the difference.
Regards, Chris

by mj-fcal2 Apr 26, 2003

The question was auto-closed by TechRepublic

by tg2 Jan 26, 2003

In short form.. NO.

the problem that you are having is not the Partition Size, its the DRIVE Size. Partitioning a drive while causing windows to see it as two drive letters, still leaves only the ONE physical disk.

Agree with above.. your only real work around wouldbe to install a new IDE controller.

Alternatively using the Disk Overlay programs that used to come with the drives could help.. but it always gives issues in the end (migrating to new systems, some data software doesn't like the overlay.. etc.)

when I say *used to come* its because they (drive manufacturers) have gotten lazy and penny pinching of late.. Maxtor I think was first to give instructions on how to backup the drive overlay software that was already on thedrive.. (so long as you hadn't already tried formatting or partitioning...) you'd set the drive type in the bios to something small, then boot from it.. copy the files off the area they had preparred and then reset the bios, install the program and away you'd go.